Procrastinating, Kingdom Saving, and all other forms of Geekdom

Versus: Episode 2

Welcome to the second edition of Versus. A number of you have sent me your matchup ideas. For now, I’m going to go with one matchup suggested by one of my readers. The other will be one that was thought of by me, or someone else at work. Eventually, depending on how many suggestions you all give me, I might do all reader suggested matchups. So, don’t forget to send me your requests.

Now, onto the first matchup. This one is from my writing partner, Matticus.

ROUND 1: Who would win a magical duel: Raistlin Majere (Dragonlance novels) VS Gandalf The White (Lord of the Rings)?

The problem with Gandalf is that they really don’t show him using his magic all that much. Granted, Tolkien might have had him use his magic a lot during the novels, but, if he did, I don’t remember it. The only thing I remember about the books is that they were incredibly hard to get through. I know a lot of people out there love the Lord of the Ring books, but they’re not for me. To me, reading should be fun. Reading the Lord of the Rings books was like work.

So, this Gandalf is going to be the movie version of Gandalf. Let’s look at what Gandalf did with his magic after he turned from Gandalf the Gray into Gandalf the White. He blocked attacks from Legolas and Gimli, made Aragorn’s sword hot, summoned a horse, and shined a light at the Nazgul to make them fly away….That was it.

By the end of his first trilogy, Raistlin was the most powerful wizard on his world, despite being the youngest wizard the world had ever seen. By the end of his second trilogy, Raistlin had challenged a goddess to a one-on-one duel….and won.

I will give Gandalf a lot of credit. He was able to defeat the Balrog, and helped defeat the armies of Sauron.

Raistlin, however, defeated a goddess. And the goddess he defeated wasn’t the lowest god on the totem pole, she was one of the three main gods of the Dragonlance universe. Nothing Gandalf did came close to this. Raistlin wins this one easily.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Luke Skywalker has the Force and he blew up the Death Star. Case closed.”

While I will concede those points, I won’t be writing Alex Rogan off that easily. After all, Luke had the help of Rogue Squadron and Han Solo to blow up the Death Star. All Alex had was a slightly annoying alien as a backseat driver.

You might also be thinking that a lot of what Alex did was actually his ship’s secret weapon, the Death Blossom. True, but the shot that sank the Death Star was the Force, not Luke’s piloting skill. Ok, let’s take away each of their secret weapons. No more Death Blossom for Alex, and no Force for Luke. So, what did each of them do without it?

Luke shot down a couple of TIEs and destroyed some of the laser towers on the Death Star. Not bad.

Alex downed dozens of ships from the Ko-Dan Armada without the Death Blossom. He also singlehandedly took down the Armada’s mothership (I didn’t know what to call it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and that’s what they call it, so that’s what I’m going with), their version of a Star Destroyer. That looks a lot better than Luke…..

Unfortunately for Alex, looks can be deceiving. The competition he faced was vastly inferior to that which Luke faced. Alex’s Gunstar, even without the Death Blossom, was infinitely better than the ships in the Ko-Dan Armada. The Ko-Dan’s big weapon was a meteor gun. A meteor gun is basically a space catapult. It was only effective because a spy sabotaged the defenses of Rylos. The Death Star blew up a planet.

TIE fighters are also much tougher opponents than the Ko-Dan fighters, too. In the movie, right before he activated the Death Blossom, it showed Alex’s Gunstar being repeatedly shot by Ko-Dan fighters, and it barely harmed the ship at all. The TIE fighters are able to blow up X-Wings on a regular basis.

So, while it appears that Alex would be considered the better pilot, because of the inferiority of his opponents makes me have to say that Luke wins this one. Plus, he has the Force. Case closed.

That’s it for now, everyone. Don’t forget to let your opinion be known in the comments. Also, if you have a matchup you’d like to see me do, be sure and send it to me.

Actually, he could’ve made the trip incredibly short. All he had to do is summon those eagles (the ones he got to fight the Nazgul at the very end) at the very beginning. Then, instead of having to cross all that land on the ground, which took forever, they could’ve just flown there and got it over with.

Well reasoned.
I have to agree. Though, if there are any readers out there with a better memory or working knowledge of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, perhaps they could shed some light on whether Gandalf used his magic more in the books. Because if we had to compare based on the movies the two characters appear in…. well, then Gandalf wins. (If you haven’t watched the DragonLance animated movie – don’t waste your time – even with Keifer Sutherland as the voice of Raisltin, the movie can’t be saved.)